Man at top of wanted list caught

Posted: Tuesday, July 26, 2005

By Joe Johnsonjoe.johnson@onlineathens.com

A tip early Monday led to the arrest of a man sought for questioning in connection with the disappearances of two Athens residents, one of whom was killed more than two years ago, Athens-Clarke police said.

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Armond Dewayne Payne, 24, topped the police department's "Most Wanted" list - not for the probation violation and contempt of court charges police cited, but because investigators think he knows what happened April 18, 2003, when both Shanta "Dena" Dowdy and Larry Bailey went missing.

"He was actually on the list for (questioning in) the disappearances of both Dena and Larry," said Lt. Clarence Holeman, supervisor of the Athens-Clarke police robbery/ homicide unit.

A tipster called police Monday after the person read about Payne in a July 10 Athens Banner-Herald article about the Most Wanted list. The caller said Payne was at an apartment on Fourth Street, Holeman said. After police received the tip about 2:30 Monday morning, officers surrounded a building at Oakwood Forest Apartments.

While a group of men sat at a table drinking beer and playing cards inside, a man at the door repeatedly told officers that Payne was not there, according to police.

Meanwhile, Payne, who goes by the street name "P-Nut," climbed out a second-floor window at the back of the apartment and was swarmed by officers when he hit the ground, police said.

Investigators found Dowdy's body last month in a shallow grave behind a house on Freeman Circle in north Athens where Hall lived with another girlfriend.

Dowdy, 22, had been in an abusive relationship with Hall since she was 14, her family said, and an autopsy showed she died from "multiple blunt force trauma."

Hall, who is serving a life sentence for kidnapping and assaulting another Athens woman, is the prime suspect in Dowdy's death and Bailey's disappearance, according to police.

Bailey also was last seen on April 18, 2003, when the 38-year-old man left his mother's house to get belongings from a former girlfriend's house, located one street over from where Dowdy's remains were found. Police said Bailey, who investigators believe was murdered, also knew Hall. "Right now I can't say Payne's an accomplice, but we feel he does have information pertaining to the two disappearances and Dena's death," Holeman said.

Although Payne is not officially a suspect in the Dowdy and Bailey cases, investigators planned to interview him about the cases as early as Monday afternoon, Holeman said.

"We know that Hall and Payne pretty much ran together all the time," he said.